Chennai Animals

Chennai, Oct 21: With a scarcity in the number of animal shelters in city, the arrival of monsoon with heavy rainfall has created a lot of problem for its fauna. Flooded roads, open manholes and uprooted trees have all contributed to the inconvenience of the street animals in Chennai.
Mostly all the animal rescue services in the city depend on a phone call from the citizens to the NGOs. There is no specialized rescue team that works to help animals reach a safe haven during such crisis. The animals which go unreported or the smaller animals which go unseen get no specialized attention from any of animal welfare organizations in the city.
Anuradha Chawla, an animal activist from Chennai said, “Monsoon is the worst time for animals in the city. They do not easily find food in the garbage dumps or the road, the baby animals usually get abandoned and the cases of hit and run increase. There was a case where a dog was hit by car while it was raining this week. We called an NGO to come and rescue the dog but they came three days after the complaint and by then the infection had spread majorly and the dog’s wound had deepened.”
“There are not enough animal shelters in the city. The NGOs are always busy with some or the other rescue. Even when they manage to send volunteers, they do not know what to do”, she added.
S. Vinod Kumar, Assistant Secretary of the Animal Welfare Board of India, said that they haven’t received any calls in the past three days complaining that the heavy rainfall is affecting animal welfare in the city.
“It is not physically possible for a team to be present in various parts of the city to take care of every animal that has fallen, it never happens” he added.
The Blue Cross of India, which started with an attempt to save dogs drowning in a flooded street receives about 50-60 calls every day, says Satya Rama, an Honorary Secretary of Blue Cross.
“Every day is a crisis day for us”, he says, “with only three ambulance and so many rescue calls, we already have a handful”, he adds.
“Animals get stuck in deep muddy dicthes or under fallen trees. Rainy season is the time when people should open their gates for the welfare of the animals”, advises Anuradha Chawla who lives with eleven dogs that she has rescued.